


instrument of peace

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: Days after their talk, he arrives again, and sits again, and she prepares him coffee, again.





	instrument of peace

**Author's Note:**

> a very very small fic inspired by that so so so so so good amontou in tg:re:117. u////u
> 
> i hope you’re having a good day. :’)

Days after their talk, he arrives again, and sits again, and she prepares him coffee, again. As she pours hot water over the filter, his fingers fold and re-fold.

_He wants to talk again,_ Touka realizes, and then she realizes, _No. He doesn’t._

He’s just nervous. Is it Dove-like, to want to make small talk, or is it just him-like? But it’s not like he owes her engaging, heart-spilling conversation in exchange for a bar seat he can barely fit into. When the coffee is finished, she hands it to him, along with a something plucked from a nearby shelf, which she previously was saving for a special occasion. He looks down at it with impressively furrowed brows.

“It’s a book,” Touka tells him, a little dryly.

“Oh,” Amon replies. He looks down at it. His hands are so large that the book in his palms looks like it’s meant for a child. He grimaces, sheepish.

“It’s…been a while,” he admits. “For me. I don’t even remember when I last…”

He trails off. _When I last read something,_ he could mean. Or, _When I last relaxed._

“It’s pretty good,” Touka says. “I think you would like it. If you’re afraid of losing it,” she continues, wiping off the espresso machine, “you can just read it whenever you come back.”

“I see,” Amon says. He examines the book’s cover, and then its back. “Thank you,” he says, finally, and Touka smiles back at him, encouragingly, and continues tidying up.

:::

In the end, he actually does come back.

The bell on the cafe’s door rings and her gaze slides over as always, only to shift away at the sight of a silhouette entering that’s large enough to fill the frame. Eventually, she doesn’t even bother looking up; there’s a quality of light at that particular hour, and a quality of the bell’s chime, and by the time he takes his usual seat, the one that’s nearest her, she has a coffee ready for him, hot, and perfectly suited to his new palate.

So, that’s how it is. Nothing difficult. Nothing complicated. He quietly sips and between their mild chats, he turns pages and she attends to customers.

It takes some time, and some steeping, but so does everything else worth anything.

:::

She doesn’t know when it is that he asks. It’s been a while, for sure. She sets his coffee down and the bell rings and she looks over — but it’s just Squad 0, crowding in and chattering and bustling their dripping, rain-wet umbrellas into the holder by the door.

Touka sighs, and turns back to Amon, and knows something is up, because, he hasn’t sipped his coffee yet. Instead, he is watching her. When their eyes meet, he clears his throat.

“I’ve been wondering,” he says. “About the One-Ey….” He pauses. “About the King.”

“Well,” Touka replies evenly, “you’re not alone. Probably.”

She doesn’t offer anything else.

“You knew him before,” Amon ventures. “Didn’t you?”

“So did you.”

“Not as closely as you did.”

_Did I know him closely?_ Touka wonders. She sets her hands on the counter, brushes back her hair.

“I wonder,” Touka says, and then she says, “I never asked if she liked the cat or not.”

Amon rubs his arm, where, presumably, there would be scratches, if cat’s claws were capable of penetrating his new skin.

“She was relieved. I think. Yes, she was definitely glad to see…ah. The cat.”

“See?” Touka says. “I told you it would be fine.”

“You’re quite wise, Manager,” Amon says, and Touka gives him a sharp look.

“I let you get away with calling me nice earlier, but don’t push it. Just read.”

Amon straightens. “I finished it, actually,” he says, “it was good.”

“Oh,” she replies, after a pause. “Good. What a surprise.”

Somehow, she wasn’t expecting that he’d actually really get through all of it. Much less begin reciting his thoughts on it to her, as he is now, with as much duty as if he were giving her a mission debrief. For some reason, her mind is racing. Did he really do it? Did he really?

He did.

“And you, Manager?” Amon asks suddenly, and Touka stares at him.

“What did you think of it?” Amon clarifies. His gaze is serious.

“It…well.” Touka clears her throat. “I…um. Liked it too. It was my…it was very compelling to me when I first read it. At the time…ah…I liked it more than anything else. And…”

She trails off, weakly, feeling foolish. She gives up. “Honestly, it’s been a while, so I don’t completely remember it.”

“Ah,” Amon says. “I see.”

Who recommends a book they can’t even remember? Touka wrings a dish towel a little too tightly.

Amon speaks, carefully. “You know…the same has happened to me as well. Especially with…everything that’s happening now.”

There are customers in the cafe; he spares them a slight glance before censoring himself, much as any ghoul might, before facing her again. He meets her eyes in a way that would be brash if he were any other person.

“It feels like much more time has passed than the simple years and months. Entire lifetimes, perhaps. Even now,” he says, “if I were to describe the way that things have turned out to my past self…I don’t think that I would believe it.”

Touka purses her lips. She’s heard inklings of what happened to him, here and there. She isn’t so sore about her own wounds anymore that she can’t spare her sympathies.

“You’ve experienced some horrible things,” she says, and Amon blinks at her, and then, to her surprise, laughs.

“That’s true,” he says. “But what I meant was this. Reading. Having small conversation. Drinking coffee made by…a place like this.” He gestures with his hand, but the gesture includes only Touka.

“I would never have guessed it, back then,” he says. “All I knew is that I was upset that the place I lived, my own home, was so unfair. But…I wonder if your cafe is a taste of what it would be like to exist in a just world. To be able to come here is truly a blessing.”

She can’t think of anything to say. There are words, maybe, bubbling in her chest — but when she opens her mouth, none of them come out. They flutter back, lifting the hair on the nape of her neck, shying behind her ribs. She walks away, a bit, and leans over the counter to fumble with a bookshelf, clawing at one of the spines until it falls into her palm. She returns, and sets the book in front of him.

“Read this one next,” she tells him. “I’ve read it more recently, so I’ll be able to talk about it with you.”

Amon smiles at her. “Thank you, Manager. I will.”

“You can take it, too,” Touka says. “To borrow, I mean. If you like.”

“Oh? Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”

:::

It takes a while, after that. Things happen. But he returns, and apologizes for a torn corner on the book’s cover, and Touka scoffs, requisitely. As part of his apology, he hands her a small, wrapped gift, which Touka carefully untapes and opens at the counter. It turns out to be a keychain.


End file.
